Means for reinforcing concrete.



No. 799,230. PATENTED SEPT. 12, 1905.

W. GABRIEL. MEANSPOR REINPORGING CONCRETE.

APPLICATION FILED OCT. 14,1904.

WITJVES SE S.

lVILLIAhI GABRIEL, OF DETROIT, MICHIGAN.

MEANS FOR REINFORCING CONCRETE.

Specification of Letters Patent.

Patented Sept. 12, 1905.

Application filed October 14, 1904. Serial No. 228,400.

To a]! Ir/z 0121/ it may (re/warn:

Be it known that I, W'ILLIAM GABRIEL, a citizen of the United States ofAmerica, residing at Detroit, in the county of W'ayne and State ofMichigan, have invented certain new and useful Improvements in Means forReinforcing Concrete, of which the following is a specification,reference being had therein to the accompanying drawings.

My invention relates to the art of reinforcing concrete by means ofsteel; and it is the particular object of my invention to produce asimple, cheap, and effective means for reinforcing concrete, so as toincrease its tensile strength when used in the construction of beams,floors, ceilings, and the like. In the present state of the art steelbars of composite form, so called truss bars, have been devised for thispurpose, which while more efficient than commercial forms of steel havealso materially increased the cost, owing to added labor and cost ofmachinery for producing them and also on account of their bulkiness,which increases the transportation charges.

I have succeeded in producing a trussbar for the horizontalreinforcement of concrete which has special advantages in the matter ofcost, as well as in efficiency, and which every building contractor canmanufacture for himself in any quantity he desires without the use ofcostly machinery or dependence upon skilled labor and of any size he mayfind best suited for the particular work in hand, using nothing butcommercial forms of steel, which he can procure most anywhere, or frommaterial which has become unfit for other uses, all as more fullyhereinafter described, and shown in the accompanying drawings, in whichFigure 1 is a plan view of a truss-bar embodying my invention. Fig. 2 isa cross-section through a concrete slab reinforced with my truss-bars.Fig. 3 is a side elevation of Fig. l. l is a plan view of a modifiedform of construction.

In the drawings, A represents a bar of metal, preferably a solid roundbar; but bars of other commercial forms may be used, or metal tubingwhich has ceased to be serviceable for other purposes will form a cheapand satisfactory substitute.

B represents two series of A-shaped stirrups continuously formed fromone piece of steel wire or steel band and extending along the bar A intwo planes intersecting each other at a right angle, or nearly so,comparable to the sides of a V shaped trough. These stirrups alternatewith each other in the two planes and connect with each other by meansof loops (1, formed by bending the wire around the bar, so that theconnecting portions between adjacent stirrups form a complete looparound the bar, in which the bar is firmly held against anydisplacement. The ends of the wire forming the stirrups are fastened tothe ends of the bar by making several turns with it around the bar orfastening them in any other convenient way.

As the construction of this bar is so simple, I deem it unnecessary todescribe how it may be formed on a commercial scale, knowing that anyskilled workman can readily devise simple appliances for the purpose,and which will permit him also to make bars of different length or withmaterial of different sizes.

In truss-bars thus formed the material is not weakened in the slightest,as there are no abrupt bends, whereas if a composite trussbar is formedby cutting up a single bar the material is considerably weakened andoften considerably injured, and such injury often escapes the most rigidinspection and may lead to disaster, while the fashioning of my barcannot bring any possible injury to the material.

Considering the efficiency of my truss-bar when embedded in concrete, asshown in Fig. 2, it will be conceded that it does not interfere in theslightest with the work of filling in the concrete around and in contactwith each portion of the bar, so that the cohesiveness of the mass ofconcrete is not liable to be impaired by careless work in filling in. Itwill also be understood that as the concrete becomes hard and set thebar becomes, in effeet, a truss, which may be rightly compared in itssustaining power as to the bending moment of the beam or slab ofconcrete in which it is embedded to that of a solid V-shaped bar of thesame general cross-section as my skeleton bar has, and thisstrengthening effect is accomplished without any of the drawback whichsuch a solid bar would have and at a small fraction of the cost of sucha bar.

It is obvious that the bar A may be utilized as a tie-rod between thesupporting floorbeams in floor construction, and it is also obvious thatmy construction of truss-bar per- Inits of placing two sets of barscrosswise each other, as there is a sufficient interval between thestirrups to do so.

Having thus fully described my invention, what I claim is 1. Theherein-described composite bar for reinforcing concrete comprising a barand a continuous piece of wire or its equivalent, said wire secured atits ends to the ends of the bar and wound around said bar at intervalsapart and alternately in opposite directions, the wire between saidintervals of winding being formed into stirrups which extend upwardlyand outwardly from the bar and alternately on opposite sides thereof intwo planes inclined toward each other in the form of a V andintersecting each other at a point directly above the bar.

In testimony whereof I affix my signature in presence of two witnesses.

WILLIAM GABRIEL.

Witnesses:

Orro F. BARTHEL, OLIVER E. BARTHEL.

